NIO to study usability of sand dredged from 4 rivers

In order to regularise
sand mining and protect the interest of those involved in the trade, the state
government has requested the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) to
conduct a chemical and physical analysis of the sand that gets accumulated at
the mouth of various rivers in the state and study if it can be used for
construction purposes.

Environment Minister
Nilesh Cabral on Wednesday held a meeting with officials of NIO and other
concerned departments to review the preliminary survey reports of the
initiative taken for regularising sand mining in the state.

Speaking to this daily
after the meeting, the minister said that the government has appointed NIO to
carry out a scientific study on sand mining and is expecting a report in the
next 8-10 days.

“In the first phase,
the government has taken up four rivers – Chapora, Mandovi, Zuari and
Cumbharjua. The NIO has already begun the work of monitoring and conducting a
survey of the sand deposited at these river beds through water flow measuring
mechanism at ten locations,” he said.

Cabral said that in the
first 15 days, NIO has found 75,000 cubic metres of sand available at the mouth
of Chapora river. The NIO team is similarly monitoring other such locations in
Mandovi, Zuari and Cumbharjua rivers.

“In the past, the
Captain of Ports used to dredge the rivers and the extracted sand was being
deposited deep in the sea. Now, in order to make sand available in the state,
for the first time, the government has taken steps to carry out a scientific study
on the availability and usability of sand in the rivers,” he said.

The minister said that
he has asked the NIO team to procure samples of sand that has accumulated at
the mouth of River Chapora and compare it with samples of sand taken from
Keri-Pernem and Karnataka and Maharashtra. The NIO will further conduct
chemical and physical analysis of the samples procured.

It may be noted that
sand from Keri-Pernem is considered the best for construction purposes in the
state. Similar is the case with sand from Karnataka and Maharashtra.

“If this experiment
succeeds, the government will go ahead with it. I will present the NIO report
to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant,” Cabral said. He said that if quality of the
sand from rivers is found to be good, it could prove to be a big relief for the
state, which is currently facing a shortage of sand for construction of houses
and other projects.

“If everything progresses as per our
expectations, then the government may ask the department of mines and geology
to auction these sites and it may be able to start legal sand mining by the end
of October or the first week of November 2020,” the minister said.

Cabral also said that
once everything is ready, the Chief Minister will take a call on how to go about
the process of sand mining, whether it should be given to local persons or not.
He suggested that identified sites could be allotted as minor mineral
concession through auction. “However, the final call will be taken by the Chief
Minister on whether it can be auctioned or taken up through some other
process,” he said.